


xvi. teddy bear

by icymapletree



Series: febuwhump/febufluff 2020 [16]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Adorable Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Big Brother Peter Parker, Fluff, Gen, with a touch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icymapletree/pseuds/icymapletree
Summary: When Peter hears Morgan’s soft snores, he carefully carries her up the stairs, doing his best not to wake her up. She is already in her PJs, so he just lays her in her bed and tucks her in.He promised her a Spider-Man story before bed, but that would have to wait until next time he babysat. It was no use waking her, when it already takes a long time for her to fall asleep.orPeter Parker is a great babysitter.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: febuwhump/febufluff 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618837
Comments: 10
Kudos: 166





	xvi. teddy bear

**Author's Note:**

> peter is 20 and morgan is nine (:

“Peter?” Morgan yawns, “Can I have a juice pop before I go to bed?”

Peter pretends to consider it, tapping a finger on his lip. “It’s a little late for a juice pop. Don’t you need to go to bed soon?”

Morgan harrumphs and makes the face that she does when she thinks. It’s the same face that her father makes, pursed lips and darting eyes.

“I’ll go to bed early tomorrow,” she resolves.

“Hm, I won’t be around to enforce that. I leave tomorrow morning, remember?”

“What if you just tell Mom and Dad that I told you that I’ll go to bed early tomorrow?”

“That’s smart,” Peter says, “But I’m nice. How about we have juice pops and don’t tell your mom and dad?”

Morgan nods with a big grin on her face, leaping up from the couch to pull open the freezer drawer. Peter’s not far behind her and watches her as she runs her fingers over the top of the wrappers in the box of popsicles. 

“What flavor do you want?”

“Red,” Peter nods, “or yellow.”

Morgan pulls out the juice pop from the box and hands it to Peter. She takes a blue one herself, smiling.

“Now we have Spider-Man colors.”

Peter laughs, unwrapping it and taking a bite. Peter throws away their trash and guides Morgan back to the couch. He tosses a blanket over their legs, flipping through channels as Morgan babbles about primary colors. 

“Mrs. P says that red, yellow and blue are the most important colors _ever_. That if we didn’t have those then we couldn’t have any of the others. And also that black and white are the second most important because they make tints and shades.”

She takes a bite of her juice pop. “If we were to melt your juice pop and my juice pop together, then we’d get dark purple. And if we were to add ice cream, then it would be a light purple.”

Peter looks away from the TV at Morgan and tilts his head. “Do you like art class a lot?”

“It’s my favorite class.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she nods, finishing up the last of her juice pop.

“You’ll have to talk to my girlfriend sometime. She really likes art, just like you.”

“Your girlfriend _Michelle_ ,” she teases.

Peter shrugs. “I only mention it because I can’t draw to save my life.”

“I’m sure you could, you just have to practice like Mrs. P says.”

He smiles at her, and continues to flip through the channels. He stops when he lands on some Disney movie - but it just fades into the background as he thinks.

If someone would’ve told him six years ago (by his count) that’d he’d be sitting on the couch in Tony Stark’s cabin watching TV with the man’s daughter, he would’ve told them that they’re crazy. A lot has changed since then, but strangely, he can’t imagine his life any other way. 

When he hears Morgan’s soft snores, he carefully carries her up the stairs, doing his best not to wake her up. She is already in her PJs, so he just lays her in her bed and tucks her in. 

He promised her a Spider-Man story before bed, but that would have to wait until next time he babysat. It was no use waking her, when it already takes a long time for her to fall asleep. 

Peter goes back down the stairs, curling back up on the couch the same way he was positioned before, the only difference being that he doesn’t have Morgan leaning into his side. 

He switches the channel to the news, and he _knows_ that he shouldn’t watch it, that they’ll just be recapping the bashing he and Tony get in the late night show monologues. Everyone seems to have an opinion on Peter’s status with Stark Industries, but no one seems to care about Peter’s own.

He doesn’t even know if he _wants_ to be the heir of SI. The news, like the vultures they are, didn’t even wait for an announcement to come out. They found out through a leak.

The press now invades his life from every corner, making assumptions on what he wants. He doesn’t even know yet. 

“ _Stark Industries still has not come out with an official statement with the leaks from last week--_ ”

He flips the channel.

“ _Peter Parker has not been spotted out in public since being outed as the ‘Stark Heir--’_ ”

“ _\--there are a lot of questions as to the nature of their relationship--_ ”

This time, he just sighs and turns off the TV, wishing that he had stuck to a late night Disney movie. His spider sense purrs in the back of his mind, and suddenly he’s aware of everything going on in the house. His senses zero in on the crying coming from upstairs.

He’s up before he even realizes it, his legs carrying him before his mind has a chance to keep up. There are so many scenarios running through his head that he can’t even make sense of any of them. It’s just a neon sign in his thoughts screaming ‘BAD.’

Peter opens the door to Morgan’s room as gently as he can, but it’s hard to be gentle when his heart is beating as fast as it is.

Morgan is sitting up in her twin bed, a blanket draped haphazardly over her. Her hair sticks up in every direction, and the tear tracks on her cheeks are lit up by the light leaking from the hallway into her room.

“Morgan?”

“I had a nightmare,” she sniffs, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. 

Peter’s posture relaxes - he could deal with nightmares. He sits in her bed with her, rubbing circles into her back. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“It’ll make you feel better…”

She takes a stuttering deep breath. “I had a dream that I lost you and Dad.”

Kids have bad dreams all the time. They might even have dreams where loved ones pass away. But Peter hates that his reality is that his little sister’s dreams about him and her father dying aren’t unfounded. 

The amount of times she’s been there when he woke up in a hospital bed are unacceptable for how old she is. She probably shouldn’t even hear about when he’s injured like that, but she’s stubborn - even though that’s no excuse for how much she’s seen.

He wants to wrap her back up in the blanket of innocence she was born with, restore some of her childhood. But he can’t be the one to do that - since he’s partially responsible for why she lost it in the first place.

“I know it’s stupid,” she says in a raspy voice, and _shit_ he was quiet for too long. “All the kids at school are talking about you and Dad, and I just don’t know what to do about it. Sorry, it’s really dumb, I know.”

“It’s not dumb,” Peter shakes his head, “I have dreams like that all the time. You’ve just gotta deal with them correctly.”

He takes her hand and places her index and middle finger on the pulse point of his wrist. “You feel that?” 

She nods. 

“I’m here,” he says, and he remembers something that he used to use when he was a teenager. “I have something I want to get for you, is it okay if I leave you here for a second?”

She nods again.

“I’ll be right back,” he promises.

When he returns from his room, he has a teddy bear that is dressed in a Spider-Man costume clutched in his hands. Morgan tilts her head when he hands it to her.

“Your dad took me to make him when I was fifteen and couldn’t fall asleep without waking up screaming. Everyone thought it was insane, Tony Stark in Build-a-Bear, but for me it was like I was going to have some fun with one of my parents.”

“I always needed to hear Tony and May’s heartbeat when I was scared like that, but since I lived with May, I couldn’t hear Tony’s without going across the city. So, this is what I did instead. You know how Build-a-Bear can put noises in their bears? Well, uh, yeah… press his paw.”

Morgan does so, and the sound of a heartbeat fills the room.

“That’s actually Tony’s heartbeat, so…” 

She turns him over in her hands, twiddling part of the costume between her fingers.

“I know it’s not the same as Tony’s actual heartbeat, but I thought you’d like him… His name is Wicket, but you don’t have to keep that if you don’t want.”

Morgans eyes dart down to the bear again and Peter worries for a second that she won’t like him. But then she says “I love him. I love the name Wicket, too.”

Peter smiles. “I’m glad.”

“Are you sure that you don’t want to keep him? He seems like he means a lot to you--”

“I’m sure,” he says decisively. 

If he can’t prevent her nightmares, at least he can give her the tools for healing after them.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! come talk to me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/icymapletree)


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